The Would Be Hero
by nanonaut
Summary: The Battle of Hogwarts went rather worse than George had ever imagined...


George just managed to dodge the flurry of red sparks that were headed his way, sending him altogether too close to a jet of green light for comfort. It barely missed him, shooting exactly where his right ear used to be. George chuckled to himself, truly glad for the first time that it was missing.

He ducked behind a gap in the wall where a suit of armor had once lived and used its protection to rest a bit and take advantage of Death Eaters whose backs were turned. If they weren't going to fight fairly, neither would he. He spotted Greyback, who was dueling with little Colin Creevey. George almost didn't recognize him, he looked so vastly different from his usual, enthusiastic self. He was deathly pale, so that each freckle stood out in stark contrast, and he was looking at once anxious and terrified. How had he gotten past McGonagall? George watched in horror as Colin's wand flew away from him, directly in the way of a jinx fired by Ginny. It shattered immediately, making a sound that was disturbingly reminiscent of breaking bones, and Greyback was closing in.

George raised his wand on instinct and fired the first curse he could think of at Greyback, enlarging the Death Eater's head to roughly the size of a watermelon. The extra weight had him topple over, and he knocked himself out on a broken gargoyle. "Colin! Oy, Colin, get over here!" George called after letting out a gleeful victory whoop. Colin obeyed, sprinting immediately toward George, straight into the swing of a giant's club. He flew across the room like a rag doll.

"Aresto Momentum!" George cried, stopping Colin from slamming into the opposite wall just in time. He lowered gently to the ground and George ran to him, heedless of the danger of being out in the melee. The points of the giant's spear had pierced Colin's small frame in five distinct, deep wounds. He was bleeding out before George's very eyes, his blood watering the ground around him and the folds of his cloak making him look like a grotesque flower.

If only he hadn't left school before learning how to heal wounds. George hollered for someone to help, looking all around him. Surely someone had to have the ability to stop this. Colin's already-clouded eyes found George's, and a single tear trickled out.

Then he was dead.

An explosion echoed from somewhere on George's left, snapping George back into the battle. There was nothing he could do for Colin anymore. He headed straight for the giant, intent on avenging Colin, but someone ran in front of him before George was able to get close enough. Someone with a cap of red hair, who was hollering, "I'll get you! I'll get you for what you did to my brother!"

"Perce?" George asked. "What are you talking about?" he demanded. But Percy didn't notice him, and continued sprinting after some target.

Where was Fred? George hadn't seen him since they'd gotten split up by Bellatrix and Yaxley's double-team. What had happened? What was it that had sent his neat, orderly brother, hollering after some Death Eater with his shirt untucked? Had something happened to Fred? Or Charlie or Bill or Ron…

He had to know. He ran back in the direction from which Percy had come, hoping at once that he would find some answers and that he wouldn't. George felt like he had been trapped alone in a room with a hundred dementors, and knew that if he did indeed find what he most feared, he would only feel worse.

George was so intent on his search that he almost missed the crumpled figure hiding in one of the alcoves in the walls that had been vacated by the suits of armor. George stared down into the mirror image of himself, only he was nastily white and terribly dead.

"Fred!" George shouted. "Fred, no!" He gripped either side of Fred's face helplessly, then slid his hands down a little to where Fred's pulse should have been. Though he was wracked with sobbing and shaking uncontrollably, it was obvious that Fred had gone like Colin Creevey.

His brother, his twin, his best friend...

His business partner, his partner in crime, his inseparable other half…

Gone.

George sank to the ground, clutching at Fred, and cried like a mandrake. They had had good times together. The best of times. Images flowed through George's mind, showing him the time that they had gotten Ron to eat an acid pop- their first real prank… the time that they had stolen a toilet seat and sent it home to Ginny as a Christmas present… their grand exit from Hogwarts, sailing of in the sky with firecrackers and the knowledge that they had just seriously pissed off Umbridge, toward what they knew would be a bright future.

He saw their first Quidditch match together, in which George had knocked out Fred with a bludger almost before the game had started.

Would these memories never stop? They were agony. George couldn't take it. He didn't know what to do, didn't know how to handle this sudden, horrific turn of events. It simply didn't make sense, losing Fred. They were supposed to be together, always.

The worst part of the ceaseless stream of memories of him and Fred was the knowledge that there would be no more. Fred had abandoned him, moving on and leaving George starkly alone.


End file.
